May 14 (Reuters) - Chesapeake Energy Corp sought tocalm Wall Street worries about its financial position, tellinginvestors on Monday it was confident it would complete assetssales to plug a funding gap estimated at $10 billion this year.

Late Friday, Chesapeake said it had received a new $3billion loan from Goldman Sachs Group Inc and JefferiesGroup Inc to pay down an existing debt facility.

The loan is designed to give it breathing room to completethe planned sales of properties in West Texas' Permian Basin andthe Mississippi Lime field in northern Oklahoman and southernKansas, which are part of a slate of sales the company says willraise $9.5 billion to $11 billion this year.

Chesapeake would not confirm activist investor Carl Icahnwould announce he had taken a stake in the company, as reportedby the Wall Street Journal.

Icahn bought a stake in Chesapeake in late 2010, but sold ita few months after the company raised nearly $5 billion throughan asset sale, which pushed the shares sharply higher at thetime.

"We have seen that (report) and wouldn't be surprise if Carlbecame a large shareholder," McClendon said. "He made, I thinkover $500 million, and he called me to thank me" after the deal.

Icahn was not immediately available to comment on thereport.

Shares in Chesapeake had slumped 14 percent on Friday afterthe company issued its delayed quarterly regulatory filing, andsaid it could put off some asset sales to preserve income neededto comply with debt obligations.

Chesapeake has been caught in a corporate governancecontroversy since Reuters reported last month that McClendon hadmortgaged his personal stakes in the company's oil and gas wellsto companies that had lent money to the company.

Shares in Chesapeake were up 3.6 percent to $15.35 per sharein early trading, bringing their loss so far this year to 31percent.